Friday 21st May (Lini’s Journal)
Brindabella's Web Diary
Simon Williams
Sun 23 May 2010 13:05
spasms in the night. We decided to go off and see some more of Bermuda
and hopped on a number eleven bus to Hamilton. We actually thought
this had better views than the number one which we’d queued so long
for on Wednesday. Everywhere was immaculate like an English village in
a ‘Best Kept’ competition. No two houses were painted the same colour
and even the zillion churches were painted brightly with white spires
or white edged bell towers. It was a shame the people weren’t in such
great shape though and many of the locals (including children) as well
as many tourists were grossly overweight. Our bus even had a special
seat for extra large people. Everyone was well dressed however and we
saw lots of Bermuda shorts with long socks on business men through to
schoolgirls and all looking very smart.
We wandered round Hamilton a while then went to the Yacht Club to
enquire about a berth while Si’s away in England. He filled out a form
and coming down the stairs we bumped into the Meakins who had just
brought ‘Festina’ there for a night or two. It was then we found out
that the prices quoted were per foot and not per meter as Si had
thought. We couldn’t think of anywhere nicer to stop for lunch and
Phillip and Lynda didn’t need much persuading to join us.
Well fed and watered, Si and I set off on the number eight to the
dockland, the route taking us over the smallest lifting bridge in the
world with an opening just wide enough for a boat’s rigging. Our
wander round the dockyard today saw wonderful stone buildings but full
of souvenir shops selling over priced tat to the tourists. Today two
cruise ships were moored alongside the dockland with a little train
ferrying people from the ships to the shops. We jumped on the number
seven and took a different route back to Hamilton taking in more
marvellous sites.
There was time for another brief wander and a pause on a bench
looking over the marina before our ferry back to St. George. Leaving
Hamilton there were more fantastic sights. Perched on tiny islands and
headlands amazing houses looked over their striped bathing pavilions
to their boats on their jetties then out across the water to more
fabulous properties. We rounded the buoys through the shallows and
arrived in St. George as a couple of drops of rain fell. How lucky it
had held off all day; we thought we’d be heading for the caves to stay
dry.
We called by for a quick chat with ‘Ocean Lady’ on the way back to
Brindabella and not overly hungry after our big lunch had a light
snack rather than dinner. I thought it wise to give my kidneys a rest
from alcohol too. Si installed the software for the wifi antenna on my
laptop then was asleep soon after. The wifi dropped out almost
immediately though which was really disappointing as this was the
first time I’d been online in five days. I recorded our last few days
in the blog offline and retired very late hoping for a connection
tomorrow.